ABC Re-Releases Zimmerman Video, Showing 'Gashes or Welts' On His Head

The story that is fast becoming America's second O.J. trial has taken more twists and turns. Via Mental Recession:

ABC News has re-digitized video of George Zimmerman taken shortly after Trayvon Martin's shooting.

The video was unveiled as an exclusive this morning on "Good Morning America." ABC was the first news organization to show the original tape.

Reporter Matt Gutman said the clearer video shows "what appear to be a pair of gashes or welts on George Zimmerman's head."

Neighborhood Watch volunteer Zimmerman has said he shot 17-year-old Trayvon in self-defense. The video shows Zimmerman arriving at the Sanford Police Department within an hour after the shooting.

Gutman said the video had been "clarified" by Forensic Protection Inc. Former FBI Special Agent Brad Garrett told ABC that the clearer video shows "marks on the back of Mr. Zimmerman's head."

Here is the new video from ABC. And here are two relevant frames. The first is from the new video. The second is from the original video that ABC released last week.

So many questions arise from those frames, most of them directed at ABC News. There are two distinct and bloody gashes visible in the frame on the left, even though my capture of it is the smaller of the two, that were not visible in the frame on the right, taken from the version first posted by ABC. That version ratcheted up the tensions in Sanford, and Martin's parents even claimed that it was the "smoking gun" proving that Zimmerman's and the police report's accounts of that night were false. This new version of the video undercuts all of that. The differences come down to color and video compression. The original version appears "lossier," meaning it is more heavily compressed for display online, and as a result much of its detail has been lost. That lost detail, however, was the entire point of posting the video, and ABC centered its story on the lack of detail seen in the original posted video.